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Spanish Judges Liken File Sharing To Lending Books
Dan Fuhry writes "A three-judge panel in the Provincial Court of Madrid has closed a case that has been running since 2005, ruling that the accused are not guilty of any copyright infringement on the grounds that their BitTorrent tracker did not distribute any copyrighted material, and they did not generate any profit from their site: '[t]he judges noted that all this takes places between many users all at once without any of them receiving any financial reward.' This implies that the judges are sympathetic to file sharers. The ruling essentially says that file sharing is the digital equivalent of lending or sharing books or other media. Maybe it's time for all them rowdy pirates to move to Spain."
But, but, but,,, this really goes against American principles and the way we live here. Therefore, it has to be wrong ! ;-)
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Is why many publishers would be happy to close all libraries if it were politically viable.
Qxe4
The real problem with the file-sharing phenomenon is that it *has no* accurate analogy. Nothing like this has ever been possible in history, and until it wasn't even imaginable by most people until it had already begun. The first-world legal system, relying so heavily on comparison and precedent, is woefully unequipped to deal with events that do not fit into an existing paradigm. That's why judgments range from "100 biiiiiilion dollars" to "Nothing to see here, move along". Hell, capitalism isn't even prepared to deal with something like this. Asking a market analyst what happens when the cost of production reaches zero and is available everywhere is like asking a physicist what happens inside a black hole - neither one has the foggiest fucking idea. All they know is that the conventional rules of the last 200 years don't apply, and that anything going in will never come out.
Brave new world indeed.
It's straight to the top of the "priority watch list" for you, Spain.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
...that we, as consumers, want to consumer media with reasonable terms.
There will always be a certain number of people who want things for free. But I suspect most of us are happy to pay a reasonable amount of money for most content.
I, for example, like certain anime TV series which I can't get through any legal channel locally. So I just torrent the fansubs. I'd love to pay 0.5-1 EUR per episode to get a DRM-free download to keep. But I can't.
Since Spotify came along I've been happily subscribing for 10 EUR a month to get an unlimited amount of music. I don't get to keep it, but it's kind of like having I radio station where I am the DJ, without the annoying ads. The price is right, thus I pay.
I'm still waiting for a reasonably priced edition of ST TNG... The price of the DVD:s is ridiculous for a series that started twenty years ago.
Piracy will likely never go away, but if the media companies actually tried to serve customers instead of maximizing profits they might actually end up with something which is viable in the long run.
.: Max Romantschuk
In Spain when you buy a media for storage (SD Cards, HDDs, CDRW, etc) you are paying a tax ("El canon digital") and that funds are shared among the authors or people with IP over published and registered works. So.. is not illegal (almost legal) to download music, movies, books, etc for personal use. Not is not personal use become rich selling 2000 "personal" copies of the last CD release of Shakira...
You choose, in USA pay each CD to the artist o in Spain you pay to some random artist when you purchase a SDCard for take pictures of your kids... Spain is too different from USA.
I live in Spain, but I not born here and not study here.
For all of you north-americans speaking out of your methane-generating device, allow me to put this in context.
In Spain we pay a tax called 'canon' (bad choice, you cannot google that and get any meaningful results, google for 'sgae canon' instead, SGAE being the equivalent of your RIAA and its ilk). That tax is about 2-3 euros out of about 50 (those numbers vary but think you pay 2-3 eur when you buy a 500 GB HD anywhere). Got that? Ok, you pay also when you buy anything of the following: TV, DVD, camcorder, camera, iPod, iPhone, any other smartphone, USB drive, microSD, set-top box, playstation, whole computer (with HD inside), etc. Any medium capable of storing copyrighted works is taxed. Many spanish people misunderstand what this tax is for and there is outrage among the ignorant that THEY(tm) tax you 'before' you commit THE CRIME(tm). Of course, it's not like that. This tax gives us what you americans and anyone everywhere has been doing since the beginning of time: lending privately. When I was 10 and lent a mix tape to a friend it was legal. When a friend lends me a book it's legal. When today someone brings a DVD to a friend's place to play it on their telly (oh those peeracy vornings) it's also legal. So this is why spanish judges rule like this. It's also not new, we have had rulings like that for 5 years since the SGAE started their scaremonging about the trillions they lose to piracy every hour. Spanish judges have no other way to rule than this because the canon tax gives everyone the right to lend privately, even if those to whom you lend are not your friends and even if this whole process is automated. Neat? You bet. Going to last? I think the legal bases for this are sound and as I said it's been extensively tested in court. That means the only way SGAE has to take this right away is to lobby and change the law but so far they have been unsuccessful. IANAL but I think you have in the US a weaker legal figure called 'fair use' that doesn't go as far.
Last thing: For this trick to work there cannot be any monetary profit to the web operator. As I said before, this is analog to lending privately. Have even a google ad in the page and you may lose the case; as long as you make a page with only P2P links you are safe.
This decision highlights the pervasive anti-commercial bias in society. It often has no practical basis. Often, the making of the money adds no extra damages to the crime itself. The bias against commercial sharing is no exception.
Commercial sharing involves sharing the same works to the same people. It has the same demand-killing effects that non-commercial sharing does. It affects the artists in the same way. The only real difference I can see is that the artist, unlike with non-commercial sharing, might actually be able to compete with the non-vanishing price point of commercial sharers. If anything, commercial sharing is better for artists than non-commercial sharing.
Why do we make such a distinction? Why is it so much worse for a person to receive an ill-gotten stream of money than, say, an ill-gotten stream of free entertainment? It makes no sense to me. I cannot support a decision not grounded in (not so) common sense.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Canada has a pretty famous blank media levy in the Canadian Copyright Act. 2/3rd of the tax goes straight to authors and publishers.
USA has a 2% import or manufacturer tax on devices that can be used to duplicate music. (Fairness in Music Licensing Act of 1998)
I just wanted to point out that the idea of taxing based on possible copyright violation is something North Americans are familiar with, and is not unique to Spain. Although Spain has cast a much wider net than even Canada when it comes to applying the tax.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I think the ruling makes sense, you just disagree with it. Of course, sharing a file is not identical to lending a book. If they were identical then there wouldn't have been a trial or a ruling.
The judges realized sharing a file was not identical to lending a book. File sharing is rather new to the courts and the judges needed to figure out the legality of this new "file sharing" activity. The US courts have sided with the corporations and have deemed that file sharing is just like making and distributing counterfeit physical books and cds. But sharing a file is not the same things as printing and selling copies of a book. If we apply your logic to the rulings in the US courts then we would have to conclude that those rulings don't make sense either.
The truth is that file sharing falls in between lending and counterfeiting. IMO, it is the US rulings that make no sense. The reason is that with file sharing, the recurring cost for producing digital information that people want is actually negative. For example, if a particular torrent file is popular then there will be a lot of seeders for it. The US courts are trying to hobble the miracle of zero or negative recurring costs while the Spanish court's decision unleashes the incredible efficiency of distribution via file sharing.
You asked how can someone make money writing a book. The answer is easy, I (and many others) pay for web sites and books and music that I like even if I am not required to. I see it as my votes for things I like. I want to keep the things I like going so I gladly contribute. I agree that legalizing file sharing might have a drastic effect on publishing industries. These industries, for the most part, have devolved to transforming scarcity into profit. Once scarcity is no longer an issue, their scarcity based business models will either transform or die. While this may be painful for workers and investors who stick with the outmoded model past its expiration date, for society as a whole it is a good thing. Authors who inspire readers enough to donate money or pay in order to keep the author rolling will survive. Many authors will thrive. Less inspiring authors won't do as well but since it costs only about $200 to self-publish a book, the barrier for entry, even for lousy authors is very low.
In general, the creation of artificial scarcity and artificial inefficiency make society as a whole less wealthy while they make a few individuals more wealthy. This is morally indefensible.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Several other countries in Europe tolerate self -growing/-producing small quantities of cannabis too.
It seems that the old world is better at making distinctions between large organised crime rings, and a couple of people in a corner doing stuff harming no-one else.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The real difference between file "sharing" and lending books seems to be that shared media (e.g., music, video) files) tend to get copied and passed around--they never are returned--and are thus dissimilar to lending a book. It's like comparing apples and oranges. To make lending a book like sharing media files, one would need to make copies of the book and pass them out to any interested persons--something that is clearly a violation of copyright in most instances (i.e., even fair-use limits how much of a work may be reproduced for protected uses).
Since music often is broadcase on public airwaves, I do believe it deserves different treatment than books, however. I liked the interpretation of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1983 that allowed for the transfer of CD recordings to tapes, because the tapes could not preserve the same level of sound quality (effectively degrading the audio to a level comparable to that heard on radio broadcasts). I wish media companies would allow people to rip and share audio files at sub-optimum levels (perhaps even limiting the allowable audio quality of then protected rips and files by statute). This would allow them to protect their "pure" digital media while facilitating legal file sharing that tends (in my understanding) to expose more customers to more music which, in turn, drives new album/track sales.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...